


The Lightfarer

by Liffis



Series: Ночной [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 1 homophobic slur, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Implied Violence, Lighthouse, M/M, Magical Elements, Medieval, Other, Pre-Slash, basically if fairy tales got a tad meaner and spikier and stuff, critical discussion of human intervention in ecosystems, implied gore, its definitely much less gay than i would've liked and usually write, merfolk!Eric, none of the soft and gentle merfolk, role of humans, the little mermaid just REALLY turned on its head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23044411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liffis/pseuds/Liffis
Summary: During night, Eric and his kin hunt for fish, they eat. But ever since the humans built the house of light at the very last rock the land has forced upon the sea, ever since then there is no more night: ever since, the sun rises even during the night. And the humans row out to the sea, fishing it empty until hunger is all Eric can think about. Hunger - and hatred for the sun catcher. One day they will catch the ones who murder the darkness, every night. Maybe this sun turn, with the new one, they will finally be lucky.A story about mercy and doing the right thing and debts being repaid.
Relationships: Alexander Semin/Eric Staal
Series: Ночной [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656082
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	The Lightfarer

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, where tf did THIS come from???????????????? Basically a post about lighthouse guards on tumblr kicked this off and my muse was like "THIS. THIS ONE." and I was like ???? ok???? and sat down and wrote and....yeah. This one here happened.  
> I wasn't sure how to tag the relationship. Technically, nothing homoerotic happens. But. To me the homoeroticism is definitely there, like, that's a key aspect of the fic. If it wouldn't be there, the plot wouldn't develop/evolve the way it does. But it absolutely is a different kind of homosexuality than what I usually write, for sure.  
> Regarding the fairy tale elements: I lovelovelove fairy tale languages and especially Russian fairy tales - as a child, I grew up on them (or the translation of them), and LOVED how different they felt compared to i.e. Grimm's tales or others. This story probably isn't really getting that across - but if you can read Russian fairy tales, you def should!!  
> If you're at that: definitely listen to Florence + The Machine, it's what I heard while writing, lol. Nothing better than to write eerie fairy tales than that music, right?

The Lightfarer

There are humans straying into their territory. Eric has heard what they say about his kind; every merfolk has. His brothers laugh and they share stories as they feed. On full moon nights, as they sit upon rocks, bathed in moonshine bright enough that even the light cannot compete: they sing.

Apparently not all humans yet have heard of them. Of where they live.

The more intelligent humans pour out fish. _A tenth to the Sea, our Lady_ , they claim, but their voices shake still as they send dead fish back to the sea, from their full nets. Glassy eyes, life barely left, still juicy: they send back what they just caught, praying that Eric’s kind will accept it. Will eat that and leave them be.

Mostly, they do.

It depends on how much they lured back. They’ll eat fish, of course, squid, sometimes birds or even seals, if they’re lucky. Whatever they can catch and is still fresh enough. The very best is when they’re still trembling, wild, dry life still clamouring in their chests as they’re pulled down –

To imagine: how strange that they do not live here, in the waters. No matter if it is a bird or a human: they drown all the same.

If only it wasn’t for the light, Eric and his brothers would feed as rich as kings of their own right. But no, humans are encroaching even here: no speck on earth is safe of them, nothing left to anyone else just as strong. No, all to the humans, none for other.

And their light is turning the night.

Where once the skies had been black as ink from freshly caught octopi, it is now murky. A flaming light, a caught star – it cannot turn the sky blue yet, but it is enough, and it rises, every night, as soon as the sun sets.

“Humans”, his brothers say, looking at the faint shimmer and shaking their head: ever since the light appeared, less and less ships are lost to the sea, lost to river banks, lost to sand dunes. The only force untamed are storms and those are too rare to feed them.

They swim through the cold water, lurking and waiting: not all ships are deterred by the light. Not all boats will heed its call. Some humans go further and beyond, ignoring the light.

Some humans stray. Small boats, quiet in the sea, easily hidden among waves and nightly shades.

Eric rises from the waters, the noise barely louder than a breath. Around him, he can hear his brothers, just as silent. The humans are unaware as they thunder away with their nets and hooks and knives. Fat, wet fishes spill into the boat, twitching with the last remains of life.

His brothers and him don’t sing to catch humans. It’s simply not necessary. Why warn them?

The humans’ blood is burning hot in the icy sea waters, and just as salty. Together, they eat. Gorging themselves: it has been a long, long time since they were able to. The light has kept the seas undarkened: the humans stay outside, all day and night. Staying away from sharp rocks and fishing the waters empty, until all living beings swam too deep, too dark for Eric’s kind to catch.

And so they wait. If there is nothing to eat – waiting is their only chance. Sooner or later, some humans will row beyond the light.

It’s their only hope.

That, and waiting for the light farer. Star catcher. The one who forces the sun to rise even at night, in his tall house. Like a jagged tooth, it is out by the furthest stone, where the land desperately stretches out, as if to rip even a single drop more away from the sea. There, the humans built their star house, and once a sun-turn, they choose someone new as the protector.

No matter how much his kind sits on the rocks, climbs up, up, up, until they gasp bone-and-fire-dry air and the water cannot carry their body – they cannot grasp him, cannot reach the pathways human have hewn into the stones, cracking the earth.

No matter how many nights they sing, under the full moon that sweetens the lure, under the new moon that distorts nightmares: they sing until their voices give out, but the humans never stray from their paths.

The humans stay and they set the night on fire and only as soon as the sun has turned once, the light carrier is allowed to leave. Until then, the nights burn, burn, burn.

Every year Eric hopes that this will be the one when they will be successful. May the next year be blessed: with rich fish swarms, dark storms, and human-free waters. May this be the year when the humans withdraw.

May this be the year they drown the light farer.

Eric dreams of it, in the first quarter moons after the new ones arrive: how it will be him who lures the human away, who pulls him to the quiet darkness, who rips the throat open until the stars spill into the waves. And finally, the nights will be dark and the waters be full of fish again.

He dreams and wishes and hopes, but no matter: all of them have been careful.

It changes nothing of the hope, and so they swim to the sun turn celebration of the humans.

They have put up lights along the coast: fires in ice that does not melt, littering the earth, goldening the land. More light – will it stay? This one is much, much weaker than the sun house: even a few fin’s lengths below the surface it is impossible to see. But what if -?

Until the humans had built their house to send away the light, no one in Eric’s family had ever believed this could be done. So what if this was how humans did it: catching small stars and bleeding them together?

Worried, he raises his head from the waves and watches, heart in his throat, worried the night will disappear again –

But no, it is as the past years: the old guard steps from the sun house, feet slipping on the rocks, just as they all did on their last night.

They are careless. It would be easy to snatch them away – but fear stills Eric. Stills his brothers. If the humans, together, can banish the night, the last refuge, what can they do to one of theirs? No, they will have to catch them on their own, like hunting fish. Less eyes is less resistance and a better chance.

And so the old guard walks back to the lands, is welcomed back. Accompanied by a fest: meat-and-fat-heavy smoke billows into the skies as they eat and drink. Not a single waft of salty, fresh air waves over – it is all land-born, what they eat on that night. Not even the smallest fish.

The new guard is sent with sadness and gifts.

Except this year, Eric notes curiously, less so. Usually, the new guard is let go with more – humanness, hugged by others, big groups, many, many people with water spilling from their face. Only when the night cannot be stretched further, when it is the latest moment to go to force the sun back into the house, is the new guard let go.

This year, the land’s turning is much faster. A handful of people say their goodbyes, wiping water from their face. The new guard’s face is dry.

That is strange. Eric looks at him, eyes squinting. The human looks as if a wind gust would bowl him right into the sea, coat barely clinging to his frame. Good. Let him crack his skull open on the rocks. Eric would gladly eat the heart right out of his ribcage.

But he is unlucky: the human makes his way to the sun house, slipping on the rocks along the way, and soon, soon, soon, the sun rises in the house. Eats up, gorges on the darkness, swallowing it whole and spitting the remains into Eric’s face.

On the land, the humans scream into the night.

Eric follows his brothers, disappearing into the sea’s calmer depths.

And so, the next year’s turn begins. It is a hungry year again – as it has always been, since the star house had been built. Somehow, they manage to eat, to fill their bellies somehow, but it is nothing compared to the dark times, when they could find fish whenever they wanted. No hunger, just fish, juicy, fresh, rich.

Now, they have to eat what they find, and Eric hates it. Hates eating birds, hates eating humans, hates eating all that comes from the lands, its flesh dry and parched, until he could drink the oceans and yet die of thirst after eating them. But it’s satisfaction, at least, catching and drowning a human: it means food, for his brothers and him, for once a full belly, and one human less who can catch stars or empty the seas.

It’s all they have, nowadays.

Until the misfortune hits.

Until he hears the screaming. Shrill, shrieking – and merfolk. One of theirs. Waking the night.

Eric shoots through the kelp forests, trying to identify the voice but unable to. It sounds beyond life and nothing at all like anyone he knows and what if it is one of his brothers? Someone he knows?

The icy air claps over him as he surfaces, and the sun house bathes everything in light. Why? It is too soon, and all opportunity they might’ve had to cut the one of theirs loose is gone. Lit up like this, the humans can see everything, no darkness to escape.

He swims closer to the screaming. Not the only one. All of them are there, wanting to help – but it’s a net, caught in the rocks. One of the humans must’ve forgotten it, or, worse, put it there to trap fish…or them. Who knew, with those light farers.

“Help me”, Jared hisses, claws digging into the ropes, and as if released by the Sea’s spell, they all scrabble at the ropes.

It’s Jeff, who’s caught, gasping for water as the net has pulled him up just enough that he’s flopping, unable to really help himself.

They rip on the ropes, cut it with their sharp rocks, trying to force it loose. No avail, the human contraption holds.

A light dances across the rocks, on its path towards them. Which meant human. Which probably meant the sun catcher.

“Go.”, Jeff garbles, weakly.

His webbed finger-claws twitch on the rocks and his eyes are fixed on Jared’s.

“Go.”, he breathes out.

The light stills. And moves away from the path to them.

One last look at Jeff, and Eric digs his claws into Jared’s side, forcefully pulling his brother towards the rocks, where it is darker and they are more hidden. Like this, they cannot do anything – they cannot even drown the human, the gap in the jagged rocks is too narrow and Jeff is in the way. The human will hurt Jeff either way, no matter if attacked or not. But like this, they’ll watch which one will do it, which one will be the first to literally, by their own hand, murder the merfolk.

No more killing the night, no more emptying the seas: murder. Nothing untamed ever roamed free of human hands.

But they will drown the human and spit his heart on the shore, his and everyone who wore his face and grieved for him: all of them will pay.

Eric watches, frozen, as the star catcher carefully climbs down the rocks, light carefully put atop the rocks. It illuminates the rest of what the human sun cannot light.

“Oh!”, the human gasps, like a fish on land, and his steps get faster. But not more careless, unfortunately, as he climbs down.

“I did not know you really exist.”, the human says, voice quiet, and mesmerized.

Maybe – for a second hope trills in Eric’s chest –

\- but then there is the flash of metal, of a knife. Next to him, Jared jerks, sorrowful wail garbling in his chest already –

In the net, Jeff snarls at the human –

\- but the knife never falls. Instead, it slashes at the net, cutting through them easily. One, two, three slices, and Jeff splashes back into the water, at least able to breathe properly again, although still caught.

Frozen, Eric watches the human hack away at the ropes, undeterred by the merfolk nor the sharp, spiny rocks that could harm just as easily.

Soon, however, he realizes why the net won’t release Jeff: from where he is standing, the human cannot reach the remaining ropes. Those are in the water, in crevices too narrow and dark for humans. Eric can see them as easy as a fish could, but he doesn’t have the knife, and the human does not seem keen to leave soon.

At least Jeff is breathing well again, skin a healthy green-grey again. It doesn’t seem to calm Jared much; he’s still trembling with tension in Eric’s grip.

Among the rocks, the human mumbles something that is lost amidst the waves, before stepping back.

“Mer-person”, he says, in his still quiet voice, putting away the knife, “I will go get help. The ropes are – I cannot cut. They are under water.”

He looks at Jeff, and that’s new, too. Not talking _about_ merfolk, but _to_ them. As if knowing, believing they will understand. And they do, but humans do not know and until now, neither had they cared.

“Mer-person”, the human starts anew, “I cannot cut the ropes, they are –“

And freezes as he sees Eric swimming closer.

It wasn’t a conscious thing to do, something he knew he’d do – until he is doing it, letting go of Jared to swim closer. He can hear the low, worried garbling of his brothers, telling him exactly what they think of his actions. But they can’t do anything without exposing themselves, and three of them might be just enough to either overpower a human or get help and they cannot risk that.

Eric swims close. The human’s feet, legs, are just one quick pull away: Eric could easily grab them and pull the human in. It’d be messy, but Jeff wouldn’t be hurt, and by drowning the star keeper, they’d receive his knife, too. Either way, Jeff would be free.

Distantly, Eric can hear the low hissing of Marc telling him to do just that – or is it Jared?

The human stares at him, frozen, clutching the knife grip. Eric is too close to really make use of the knife. In a fight, it would no longer be the human who’d win, despite the rocks. This mix of land and sea is still too much of the former to be Eric’s kingdom, but it’s enough salty water.

They fixate each other, neither daring to be the first to move. The human is wet, soaked to the bones, the sea lapping at his boots. His eyes are dark and wide in the dim light. He’s a lot of long lines, and wide shoulders. Strong. Made for land as much as Eric is for water.

The human blinks and breathes out. Exhaustion is cut sharply into his face, but as soon as he opens them again, it recedes. Pales at his dark eyes, and –

\- he kneels, clothes soaking at his knees immediately. The sea is not forgiving for humans, too cold for them to stand for long, even in the warmest summers.

“Here.”, the human says, and in one slick movement that could spill fish guts easily, he has drawn the knife…

…and holds it out to Eric, handle first. The sharp blade rests on the soft inside of his arm. Eric can make out the blue of his blood, under the thin skin; one nick and it would spill, steaming and salty, into the sea. One twitch, and Eric would cut him open and bleed him out.

He stares the human into the eyes, and cannot make out what he sees. The land-walker is drawn and worn, yes, but also not; like rock smoothed into shape. It reminds him of the one river gate, where one of the fish rivers streamed into the sea – his parents had sung them songs of their forefamily, the ones that swam many, many generations before and who had witnessed the river slowly grind the rocks into a gate.

Eric takes the knife. Carefully. It is warm from the human’s grip.

The sun catcher nods at him and gets up again, carefully climbing back up. He does not turn his back to Eric, which is just as well and understandable. Eric watches him making his way back up, expecting him to stop at some point, to wait for them to cut Jeff lose and return the knife, but the human never does.

Soon, the light moves back to the sun house – that one, unfortunately, stays bright and shiny, but here, in this moment, they are only bathed in twilight.

“Eric!”, Jared hisses and grabs the knife from his hand, finally cutting the last ropes binding Jeff, before wrapping him in a hug. Entwined as they are, it is easy for Eric to steal back the knife.

He decides to keep it.

And so it goes: the light farer returns to his house and at night, the human-made sun rises and Eric and his family hunger, hidden in depths and shadows. But Jeff is with them still and that is a difference. If anything: in the long line of humans living in the tower at sea, none would have done it, surely.

Almost all of them had seen merfolk, and all of them had shrieked, dropping their fire, grabbing their necklaces, shaky words dripping from trembling mouths. After, none of them had ever gone out of the house without a knife again and the sun had risen at the earliest point of night, when the day still clung on in the last blue rays.

None except for the new one.

He stays alone in his house, raising the sun, dutifully. The suncatcher never entombs the sun earlier than he has to: when it is night, it rises, but no earlier. For the first time in years, eternities, Eric sees the night again.

Stars sparkling on the sky and the fat, heavy white of the moon, cool light so welcome, so dearly missed after the bright, hot sunlight.

The humans stray out later – the fish take slightly less to realize it than Eric and his family, because one night, the first fish skitter away from their fins, silver glitter in the dark sea. Fish, there are fish again, big and juicy, swarms of them –

They eat, gorging themselves on fish –

The last one, Eric only eats because he’s unsure when he’ll get to eat again. So much fish, at least, for surely the humans will realize their mistake and rise earlier into the night, will ask for the trapped sun to rise earlier again: the night is the humans’, too.

So Eric eats, gnawing at the last fishbones, picking them clean as he stares up at the tower, where the lightfarer rises, as every night. He’s carrying a single light, higher and higher up the tower and before he is at the top to rouse the sun, Eric dives into the depths where it will not reach.

The sun never rises early again, always only when it is night and the sea grows back: finally drawing a breath. A meagre one – the humans still come out to fish, they still drag net upon net of fish and everything else living from the waves -, but there are a few, scant hours when they cannot. So little time, yes, but now there are a few hours between the long stretch of midday and morning.

It is the most they’ve had in a decade, surely.

And Eric looks at the lightfarer, every night – at first because he wanted to catch him breaking the breath: what if this night would be the one he’d rouse the sun earlier? What if this would be the night they’d be forced to starving again?

But the man never does.

He looks tired as he walks at night, stairs twirling around the tower. Eric watches him, him and his gold-glimmer of his hair and paleness of clothes and body as he walks up. Eric watches and worries about the sun, and in no night is he disappointed.

The night is still too-bright, but they have more time.

The sea makes its home under Eric’s skin again, his body filling out again, no longer thin and spindly from hunger. The fish live, and so does he.

Until one night, the light farer steps out earlier. Fear crackles across Eric’s skin – but the human does not step up to the tower top, instead turning towards the sea.

His feet slip on the rocks as he walks and soon the sea foam has the man’s trousers cling to his legs. Yet, he walks on, closer and closer to the shore and further away from where he reigns. Here, it is Eric and his kin who are in power, and all humans know it.

The lightfarer wears no knife, nothing to protect himself. His soft throat is bare, as are his lower arms.

“Merfolk”, he calls out, voice rumbling over the words. There are shadows on his face, but not of malice but of exhaustion, bruising under his eyes.

Eric decides to answer his call. No human has ever called for them like this, none ever, and twice-over not while being one slip away from falling to the merfolk’s kingdom. Nor had any human ever helped them like the lightfarer had.

“You call us?”, Eric asks, head rising from the waves.

The man’s eyes are dark brown, darker than his light hair. It does not gleam like gold like it does during the walk to the top.

“Yes.”, the human says, kneeling down.

So easy to hurt: no human is a match to merkin and yet. And yet. – The man’s hands are long and slender as they curl around the rocks to stabilize himself.

“Merfolk, in two nights I will have to light the tower brighter than usual. Brighter, too.”

He offers no explanation why, but there is regret written in the line of his mouth and the bow of his back, so Eric merely tilts his head at the words.

“Thank you for the warning.”

The man nods and raises again, walking back to the tower. Walking away to rise the sun in the tower, as it is its’ time to.

Eric dives deep to warn his family.

And it is just so: two nights later, they all hide deep under water and even there, the human-caught sun is bright, barely leaving the day in peace as it rises. The fish hide away. Without the lightfarer’s warning, they would have gone hungry and burnt, surprised by the early light.

But now they are neither, instead they spend a slow, exhausted night under water. They know no hunger and Eric is happy how easy it is to forget its sharp stabs so quickly.

It is just the one night – any fear that it would’ve only been the first of many is quickly dissipated: the fish swarm as they do during the twilight, before the lightfarer rises the sun at its usual hour. They eat as they do every night now.

And the night after that, and the one after that, too, and – and they probably could’ve kept on living, could’ve kept on swimming along the algae and watched the fish swarms grow –

\- had there not been fires, along the river, on the ninth night after the big fire.

But it is too early for the yearly fest; much too early by many, many moons, yet the humans have lit their fires, until the coast itself is burning in a bright orange, red, black: a dying sun burning at last.

The others hiss at Eric to stay down, as they huddle in deep creeks, cracks, between the rocks so no human can find them nor a net trap them. Here, they are safe.

Eric cannot explain why he still swims up, hiding between the ragged cliffs, watching the humans carefully as they – rumble to the lightfarer’s house?

Indeed they are, their feet thundering in the formerly unbroken night, screaming and yelling. Even the fire eats up the night sky, bright and hungry, perpetually hungry for blood as the humans who carry it.

Eric swallows, looks up to the tower – and there it is, the warm, golden light of the lightfarer walking up the tower as he does every night, as if nothing is unusual, as if it is just another night as any before.

The humans get closer, slowly but surely they gain ground. Soon, the first one cracks his hand down the tower door.

“Open up”, he barks, voice a thunderclap in the darkness, and again: “Open up, faggot!”

The ones behind him roar at that last word, raising their fires that loom, dark and sharp and oily enough that they might have the sky burning soon.

Inside the house, the lightfarer walks on, undisturbed. But he has to hear, Eric is sure: even his brothers must’ve heard the humans by now. They are ordering the man to open the tower, call him names.

Eric understands only a few of it and even of those, he cannot see how it came to be meant as they do, for how they mean it is written in how they scream it. Scream and curse, their faces twisted in hatred, eyes flashing and teeth gnashed.

Hungry for blood, but not from hunger in their bellies. Their eyes are hungry only for the spilled blood and the pain it causes: Eric knows this feeling well, it is how he drowned humans whenever he could.

The lightfarer is at the top of the tower.

He will not survive this night. And Eric cannot help him. Not on land and not so far up the tower, where the birds reign: it is two kingdoms away. He is powerless –

\- powerless to watch as, for the first time in many moons, the sun does not rise.

Instead, the lightfarer opens – opens one of the unmolten-glass-holes, the one that wind cannot pass but light can, a thin slit so far up high. Eric can barely see.

A warning call, wordless and loud,

Something huge is thrown out, and another something, and another, huge lumps of ice, one after another, and Eric ducks behind the cliff as he realizes where they will land. Barely a moment later, the ice crashes against the rocks and it sounds like no ice he has ever heard: a sharp, horrible noise, loud and crashing, like rocks cracking open.

More and more and the humans have heard it too: their knocking pauses but then picks up until there’s the groan of wood giving in to violence.

Eric looks up, to the tower that is dark and the only thing still silent in this night.

“Merfolk!”

The lightfarer calls out, Eric can barely hear him over the humans lumbering up the stairs like a maelstrom.

“Merfolk!”

A second time, the lightfarer calls out, louder this time. The tower is burning bright red, angry and red and it is an unexpected heat Eric has not yet experienced.

“Merfolk!”, the lightfarer shouts over the screaming, voice tinted by fear.

“I hear you, lightfarer!”, Eric calls back, “We have not forgotten your deeds!”

On the second half of his words, the man jumps.

A white sail in the inky night, he flies, falls –

\- lands

And sinks. The sea foam rises just enough to protect him from the sharp rocks, but the mercy is paid for: she drags him under, waves swallowing him whole.

Eric follows him, immediately.

Under water, it is dark and silent; only the human is still there: pale and warm and alive still. Not for much longer, nothing landborn can truly live here for long, under water. Life itself will leave him, too, the further he goes.

The human sinks, dragged under water even without any of Eric’s kin doing so. His eyes are open, his clothes billowing around him.

Eric wraps his arm around his waist, and against him, the human is still warm, although that is fleeting as he touches him. Strength is leaving him – but not enough, the man grabs Eric’s other hand and with one jerk, he manages to find the knife.

The knife Eric has been wearing ever since he received it. The debt. The gift. The promise. All of it.

The human bares his throat and it feels like sun turns away how Eric has thought of how easy it would be to rip it to shreds, to spill the hot blood in the clammy waters, to eat out the lightfarer’s heart, beating from the ribcage.

And now they are here and the human jerks Eric’s hand and the knife and – and he wants what Eric has wanted, so many turns ago.

The man is getting weaker, too, sea sapping his life, turning him grey and a different, lifeless grey. His grip on Eric’s hands is slackening.

Eric looks at him, his dark eyes, how not even this very moment, where it ends, for the human, is enough to wipe the exhaustion from him, not even this, after all that time. How much, too must the land owe this human? As much as the merfolk owes him?

He kisses the human on the lips.

A brief brush, no more: it takes no more. With one claw, Eric carefully draws on the human’s throat and obediently, the flesh cracks open, grows as it had not needed to while on land. But it is no land where they are: it is the sea, and she carries its own powers. Eric’s is nothing on it, but sometimes, he can ask. Sometimes, she answers.

And so the human groans, a deep noise from his ribs and the last air leaves him in a glittering shower of bubbles. A last burst of humanness – of that, no more. His skin is cold now, as cold as Eric’s now, and the once-human changes.

It is a quick affair. Most of the change is, at least: in the next few moons, the rest will happen, too, but now the once-human can breathe, can swim, can eat. For now, that is enough: it has sapped him, and he is limp in Eric’s arms, dead weight, and now his face matches what he must feel like.

Eric drags him to his family.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, the end is kinda ambiguous - and yes, there are no explicit reasons for why things happened. But I enjoy this...hm, openness in a way? Like, I do think I will write shorter stories that might focus on certain aspects (for example: what is it that Sasha has thrown out of the window? And why? How does he deal with being transformed?


End file.
